ABSTRACT

The emotional seesaw phenomenon (ESP) is a social-influence technique in which a person experiences a certain emotion, where the external stimulus that evoked the emotion suddenly disappears. Large effects on compliance and impaired cognitive functioning were reported after ESPs. The present research (total N = 163) tests a generalization of this phenomenon: whether mere cognitive busyness leads to similar effects by provoking an inner focus. Two experiments closely modeled after previous ESP experiments supported this reasoning: a simple expectancy violation (Experiment 1) and cognitive load (Experiment 2) caused a comparable pattern of results as the ESP. Experiment 3 demonstrated that also the ESP fostered an inner focus and consequently compliant behavior. We discuss mechanisms underlying social-influence techniques.

摘要

情感跷跷板现象（ESP）是一种社会影响技术，在该技术中，人会经历某种情感，而引起情感的外部刺激会突然消失。据报道，ESP后对依从性和认知功能受损有很大影响。当前的研究（总N = 163）测试了这种现象的一般性：是否仅仅通过引起内在专注就使认知繁忙导致类似的效果。在先前的ESP实验之后进行了紧密建模的两个实验支持了这种推理：简单的预期违例（实验1）和认知负荷（实验2）产生了与ESP相当的结果模式。实验3证明，ESP也促进了内在的关注，因此也遵循了行为。我们讨论了社会影响技术的潜在机制。